This statue of ‘The Jolly Fisherman’ was made to commemorate John Hassall’s famous 1908 poster advertising trips from London Kings Cross to Skegness. The trips cost three shillings per person and were so popular that the campaign ran for five years! Images of ‘The Jolly Fisherman’ can be seen all around Skegness, and a statue similar to this one can be seen at the town’s train station.

The Green Man Ceiling Boss at Crowland Abbey

This ceiling boss represents the Green Man, a pagan symbol of fertility recognisable as a face surrounded by branches and leaves. Although Green Men are frequently found in churches, it is unusual to see them so near the altar as the one shown here, found above the choir stalls at Crowland Abbey. When the abbey was built (and, presumably, the ceiling boss placed) in 1427, the altar would have been further away from the Green Man than it is now.

The Gainsborough Model Railway

The building of the Gainsborough Model Railway commenced in 1953, resulting in what is now one of the largest model railways of its kind in the country. Based on the East Coast Main Line from London Kings Cross to Leeds Central, the railway covers 2500 square feet, has over 1200 feet of main line track and requires ten operators to run it!

What do you think of the frontrunners so far? Are these the objects that you would expect to be leading the race for most popular heritage item in Lincolnshire? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

The University of Lincoln’s Our Lincolnshire heritage project invites residents and visitors to the county to try their new web-app ‘My Lincolnshire Collection’.

http://mylincolnshirecollection.org/

The Our Lincolnshire team, led by Professors Carenza Lewis and Matthew Cragoe, have now launched ‘My Lincolnshire Collection’, a creative web-app that provides a panel of 100 photographs of interesting and unusual objects from around Lincolnshire, and asks you to create a collection of up to 10 of your favourites. Each object is represented by a photograph and informative description to help you make your choices, and can be dragged from the panel on 100 into a selection bar at the top of the page.

In acknowledgement of the feeling that the city of Lincoln sometimes dominates ideas and conversations about Lincolnshire’s heritage, the Our Lincolnshire team have tried to focus on bringing objects from lesser-appreciated areas of the county to the fore. The app also includes a number of objects that may not traditionally be thought of as “heritage”, such as Skegness Ferris Wheel, Gainsborough Model Railway and a number contemporary artworks from North Kesteven. This sense of variety in both object location and type means that the My Lincolnshire Collection web-app has something for everyone to enjoy.

Once you’ve submitted your selections, ‘My Lincolnshire Collection’ will bring up a map of the county with the locations of your heritage objects marked, accompanied by links to their corresponding heritage sites where applicable. It is the Our Lincolnshire team’s hope that the app will enable and encourage Lincolnshire’s residents and visitors to explore more of their county, also allowing people to engage with their heritage in a new and fun way.

The selections made by users of the ‘My Lincolnshire Collection’ web-app will form part of a research report for the Our Lincolnshire project, as it will enable the team to gauge people’s perceptions of heritage, what about it is important to them and what it means to them.

Please give the web app a go using the link below, and if you have any comments or questions please feel free to direct them to acruse@lincoln.ac.uk.

Over 2000 people have already taken our new Buzzfeed quiz: ‘Which TV Historian Are You?’

The quiz asks users to choose their favourite images from a selection of categories such as faces, windows and animals (as seen below).

Many of the images used in the quiz have been taken from the My Lincolnshire Collection web app, launched last Friday on Siren FM. You can have a listen to our live launch here, and give the app a go here.

And of course, join the thousands of people who have already found out which TV Historian they are with our Buzzfeed quiz, here.

The app is accessible via any web-enabled device, and enables users to explore a range of heritage objects from all over Lincolnshire, curating a collection of the county’s heritage according to their own tastes and priorities.

Here’s how to create your Lincolnshire Collection:

Step 1. Choose up to 10 favourites from our 100 specially selected heritage object tiles. Images of these objects have been collected from heritage sites all over the county in the hopes that, in addition to the historical artefacts that draw thousands of visitors to our city centre each year, the collection will also represent Lincolnshire’s lesser-known treasures.

From the panel of 100 images, you can click and drag a tile into your Lincolnshire Collection bar at the top of the page to put it into your collection (don’t worry, you can always drag a tile back out of your Lincolnshire Collection bar if you change your mind).

To get a better look at an image, simply click on its tile to enlarge it. You will also find a description of the object, to help you make the all-important decision of whether or not to select it for your Lincolnshire Collection. Once you’ve finished your collection, click ‘Next’!

Step 2: Tell us in the comments box how or why you chose the objects that you did for your Lincolnshire Collection. Did you go with a specific theme? Or did you choose the objects that appealed visually? We’d love to know!

Step 3: Discover where you can go to find your selections in real life, using our handy map of Lincolnshire – you’ll see that all of your chosen objects have been marked individually according to your Lincolnshire Collection. You could even plan a trip around the county to see them all!

Step 4: Share with your friends! Heritage is for everyone, so be sure to spread the goodness.

We hope that you enjoy using our new web app to create your Lincolnshire Collection. If you have any questions about the app that aren’t covered in this post, please feel free to get in touch using the contact form below.

In a quiet corner of Clay Lake, a few minutes’ drive away from the hustle and bustle of Spalding High Street sits Gordon Boswell’s Romany Museum, founded and run by Mr Boswell and his family. The museum houses what is said to be the largest public display of traditional Romany Gypsy vardos (wagons), photographs and memorabilia in the world so, naturally, I called and made an appointment to visit the museum the second I found out about it.

It was on a blustery grey Thursday that I pulled into the yard of the museum and got out to find the front doors to the building locked. I was almost an hour early for my meeting with Mr Boswell so was unsurprised when my knocking went unanswered. Undeterred in my rudeness, I went and called at the front door of the house next to the museum (I had been reliably informed that this was where Mr Boswell lived), and was received by Mrs Boswell who kindly took me through to the back of the museum where we found Mr Boswell in the middle of his previous meeting. I (finally) felt bad. Especially when Mrs Boswell accused her husband of forgetting about his meeting with me. “No, no! I’m early, I’m very early.” I bleated, guiltily. Mr Boswell graciously ignored my bad manners and said that I was welcome to have a wander around the museum whilst he finished up his current engagement.

The museum is packed with wonderful things to look at and learn about.

The Romany Museum, I discovered, is a difficult place through which to wander casually (or, indeed, quietly). There are so many vibrant and fascinating displays to see and read about that one ends up dashing from thing to thing, gasping audibly at the excitement of seeing so many beautiful objects in one place. Large vardos of every colour line the walls, making the entire space look like something from a fairy-tale. Ten minutes into my exploration, I was nosily poking my head around the inside a reconstruction of a fortune-teller’s tent (complete with mannequin dressed in traditional Romany fortune-teller’s garb) when I heard Mr Boswell calling me from the other side of the museum. As we went to sit down in the museum café, I apologised for my early arrival, and for intruding on the previous appointment.

“No, it’s fine. We’ve had lots of people coming and going recently.”

“Oh?” I enquired, “I thought you didn’t formally reopen for the new season until March?”

“We don’t!” He replied. “But we’ve had the ghost-hunters in several times over the past few weeks.”

“Ghost-hunters?!” Ever the sceptic, I stifled a chuckle. “Don’t tell me this place is haunted?”

Mr Boswell didn’t return my light-hearted expression. The corners of his mouth turning down, I realised that he was quite serious.